I’ve got an hour long podcast in audacity. As I’m working in it, it is now up to 87.48 GB and I am only halfway through. It has been increasing steadily my whole edit. I am now at a point where it is so large I keep getting the message that there is no room on the disk to save it. The file is already taking up 87.48 GB and it wants me to have an additional 87.48 GB to save it? I’ve removed literally everything on my computer to an external hard drive and it’s still not enough. This is not sustainable and I did not used to have this issue with earlier versions of audacity. I’m going to have to find a different program if this doesn’t get resolved. I see other people seem to be having this issue so I don’t think I could do anything to change this- this is just how Audacity is running right now?
Do you REALLY need an AUP3 project or can you use regular WAV or LAME files? (I almost never make a project but it depends on what you’re doing.)
…I don’t know if there’s a way to throw-away the undo information or anything else that you might not need. But someone here probably knows.
I don’t choose to save it as an aup3, but I generally don’t get all my editing done in one sitting, so I need to be able to return to it and aup3 is just now it saves in Audacity when I open a new file. Is there something I am missing here?
No, you’re not missing anything. Audacity saves your work as .aup3-files, which allow you to undo previous changes when you re-open them.
You can also export your music as WAV, AIFF, etc. - but then you cannot undo previous changes. Your choice.
Okay, Right. So, then the general consensus is that there is nothing I can do about the automatically created aup3 save file being (at this point) 105 GB and we are just waiting for Audacity to fix this?
You can do something. Just export your work and do not save. Then, no .aup3 is created.
You can delete it and work with WAV/FLAC files. A temporary file will be created but you don’t have to save it. It will be larger than your original files (it uses 32-bit audio) but it shouldn’t grow out-of-control.
I know they are working on Version 4 but I have no idea if they are changing underlying database format.
You might want to try GoldWave ($50 USD for a lifetime license after the free trial). It doesn’t make projects. I’ve had a license for a couple of decades (I think before Audacity existed) so it’s essentially been free. …But it might not be around for another 20-30 years.
But, if I am someone that does need to save my work to ensure it keeps changes between two different editing sessions, then there is nothing different I could be doing.
If you export your work in Audacity, your changes / the result of your work are in the exported file. But you cannot undo them later. Like in any document.
If you save in Audacity, all your clicks, filters, whatever, are included in your saved file and you can undo them. Can’t you imagine that all this needs space?
And you probably know how to throw away a file you do not need any longer (i hope).
Well then, I’m out.
There is definitely something strange going on when your AUP3 file balloons to that size.
Audacity does not save undo information when you close a file. This is easy to verify: when opening an Audacity project, the Edit > Undo menu item is disabled.
Are you cutting and pasting clips between projects? Strange as it may seem, this common practice of using a “temporary” project to hold audio clips can sometimes result in the effect you are seeing.
Go to Preferences > Tracks Behaviors. Under “Pasted audio”, make sure that “Smart Clip” is not selected. You probably want to select “Selected audio only”.
This won’t help your current project, but it may help when editing subsequent projects.
If you are suffering from the “too many smart clips” effect, the following may help.
Open the latest saved version of your project
Select each track one by one and do Tracks > Mix > Mix and Render. If you have any real-time effects on the track, disable them first. This will merge all audio clips on the track into one clip. This will apply, then discard, any envelopes you have on the track. If it looks like several tracks were mixed into one track, Undo, then make sure you have only one track selected, and try again.
After you have done this with each track, do File > Save As and save it under a new file name.
Was the file size reduced?